1 . Wouldn’t it be wonderful to travel to a foreign country without having to worry about the headache of communicating in a different language?
In a recent Wall Street journal article, technology policy expert A lec Ross argued that, within a decade or so. We’ll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones. That’s because technological progress is extremely rapid. It’s only a matter of time. Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they’re wondering if their kids should even learn a second language.
It’s true that an increase in the quantity and accuracy (准确) of the data loaded into computers make them cleverer at translating “No es bueno dormir mucho” as “It’s not good to sleep too much.” Replacing a word with its equivalent (同义词) in the target language is actually the “easy part of a translator’s job”. But even this seems to be a discouraging task for computers.
It’s so difficult for computers because translation doesn’t—or shouldn’t—involve simply translating words, sentences or paragraphs. Rather, it’s about translating meaning. And in order to infer meaning from a specific expression, humans have to interpret a mass of information at the same time. Think about all the related clues that go into understanding an expression: volume, gesture, situation, and even your culture. All are likely to convey as much meaning as the words you use.
Therefore, we should doubt whether a machine is able to translate the world around us. If people from different cultures can offend each other without realizing it, how can we expect a machine to do better? Unless engineers actually find a way to breathe a soul into a computer, undoubtedly when it comes to conveying and translation meaning using a natural language, a machine will never fully take our place.
1. What does the underlined word “imminent” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Ready. | B．Coming. | C．Helpful. | D．Advanced. |
| A．Their data is not adequate (充足的) enough. |
| B．The real meaning of words can change. |
| C．Their accuracy needs big improvement. |
| D．A soul hasn’t been breathed into them. |
| A．Proper translation can be difficult for humans. |
| B．Slight difference mean little in translation. |
| C．Some machines will translate our world properly. |
| D．Cultures deserve more attention than words used. |
| A．A new language translating machine |
| B．Translation will become easier |
| C．Who Will Be a Better Translator |
| D．Will Language Barrier (障碍) Actually Fall |
2 . The morning after an evening struggle to care for my three-year-old daughter, I couldn’t wait to get her to school. I, as a mother, was tired from the hopelessness and her inability to communicate because of her slowed language development.
As I accompanied her into the car, I felt desperate. Nothing was right with our world. She’d been born around the same time when the nation was witnessing the birth of another Great Recession. My job and my house had been victims. Then this happened. My child’s language delay was identified, but doctors struggled to properly help her, I felt like we both needed to be rescued.
I returned that afternoon as disenchanted as when I left. Walking slowly toward the school’s playground gate, I found her preschool teacher racing to greet me.
“You should have seen her today!” His breathy words were supported by excitement. I didn’t interrupt. “See that climber.” He pointed to a wooden piece of playground equipment that looked like a rock wall. I nodded. “Well, every day since she started school, she’s tried and failed to make it to the top.” He took a breath. “And today she did it!”
He expressed his joy just as he’d witnessed her conquering Mount Everest! “She cheered and celebrated! I wish I’d recorded it!” His words comforted me. My daughter had conquered her mountain.
As she ran toward me, I recognized something I hadn’t before. I saw her perseverance. I saw her strength. I saw a hero.
Everyday greatness celebrates ordinary people who do unusual things in big and small ways, showing courage, kindness, love and selflessness. We encourage you to click these brief accounts and invite you to share your own story.
1. Why did the author rush her daughter to school that morning?| A．She was in bad mood since they had a fight last night. |
| B．She was too tired from her own work and desired for a good rest. |
| C．She couldn’t control her anger because her daughter didn’t behave well. |
| D．She broke down because she was exhausted caring for her daughter last nigh |
| A．hopeless | B．relieved |
| C．satisfied | D．worried |
| A．Because she began to communicate with others normally. |
| B．Because she was so determined and ambitious to be a good climber. |
| C．Because she overcame the difficulty and managed to do what she wanted. |
| D．Because she was the only student succeeding in standing on Mount Everest. |
| A．In a radio program | B．On the Internet |
| C．In a newspaper | D．On a magazine |
3 . There were smiling children all the way. Clearly they knew at what time the train passed their homes and they made it their business to stand along the railway, wave to complete strangers and cheer them up as they rushed towards Penang. Often whole families stood outside their homes and waved and smiled as if those on the trains were their favorite relatives. This is the simple village people of Malaysia. I was moved.
I had always traveled to Malaysia by plane or car, so this was the first time I was on a train. I did not particularly relish the long train journey and had brought along a dozen magazines to read and reread. I looked about the train. There was not one familiar face. I sighed and sat down to read my Economics.
It was not long before the train was across the Causeway and in Malaysia. Johore Baru was just another city like Singapore, so I was tired of looking at the crowds of people as they hurried past. As we went beyond the city, I watched the straight rows of rubber trees and miles and miles of green. Then the first village came into sight, immediately I came alive; I decided to wave back.
From then on my journey became interesting. I threw my magazines into the waste basket and decided to join in Malaysian life. Then everything came alive. The mountains seemed to speak to me. Even the trees were smiling. I stared at everything as if I was looking at it for the first time.
The day passed fast and I even forgot to have my lunch until I felt hungry. I looked at my watch and was surprised that it was 3:00 pm. Soon the train pulled up at Butterworth. I looked at the people all around me. They all looked beautiful. When my uncle arrived with a smile, I threw my arms around him to give him a warm hug (拥抱). I had never done this before. He seemed surprised and then his weather-beaten face warmed up with a huge smile. We walked arm in arm to his car.
I looked forward to the return journey.
1. The author expected the train trip to be________.| A．adventurous | B．pleasant | C．exciting | D．dull |
| A．The friendly country people. | B．The mountains along the way. |
| C．The crowds of people in the streets. | D．The simple lunch served on the train. |
| A．choose | B．enjoy | C．prepare for | D．carry on |
| A．Johore Baru. | B．The Causeway. | C．Butterworth. | D．Singapore. |
4 . While quite complicated at times, coding is a way of communicating with a machine ——in many ways similar to a human writing script and virtually anyone can learn it. It's made up of a set of rules and commands, and once you master them all, you can control a machine in any way you want!
Now, in the brave new world we live in, coding has become a new form of literacy, and the way of technology is progressing, understanding how machines work and how to "communicate" with them is going to be the new norm in future education.
So, what is coding in the first place? Responsible for bringing machines, websites, and applications to life, coding represents the act of issuing commands written in a programming language to achieve a specific result・ Most of everything you've seen on your desktop screen, a laptop or on an iPhone has been programmed by writing code sheets.
Why should kids learn how to code? On one hand, coding develops problem-solving skills. Writing code into a platform to make something "come to life" is a fairly high-precision craft. Through trial and error, a child will learn how to make something work and then even fix it if it fails along the way! On the other hand, coding gives them better job opportunities in the future. For all intents and purposes, programming is becoming increasingly popular and will be even more so in the future!
Learning how to code doesn't happen overnight. So, considering that the future has plenty of programming and technology for our children and us, having them get acquainted with this subject matters while they're still young. It is possibly the best way to give them an upper hand in education and find a well-paying job!
1. What is the key to learning how to code?| A．Being expert at communicating. | B．Mastering the rules and commands. |
| C．Possessing essential skills of writing. | D．Having interest in playing computer. |
| A．Principles of coding. | B．Importance of coding. |
| C．Explanation of coding. | D．Devices that need coding. |
| A．Advantage. | B．Pride. | C．Chance. | D．Permission. |
| A．Rules and Commands for Coding |
| B．Various Ways for Kids to Learn Coding |
| C．Benefits of Learning Coding at a Young Age |
| D．The Importance of Coding in Real Life |
5 . Chinese researchers have developed a robot designed to help doctors treat the new coronavirus and other highly contagious (传染的)diseases.
The machine has a long robotic arm attached to a base with wheels. It can perform some of the same medical examination tasks as doctors. For example, the device can listen to sounds made by patients'hearts and lungs.
Cameras record the robot's activities, which are controlled at a distance so doctors can avoid coming in close contact with infected patients. Doctors and other medical workers can run the machine from a nearby room, or from much farther away.
The robot's main designer is Zheng Gangtie, an engineer and professor at China's Tsinghua University in Beijing. He told Reuters news agency that he got the idea for the machine when the number of cases of the COVID-19 virus was rising quickly in the city of Wuhan.
One of Zheng's friends, head of Bering's Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, told him that one of the biggest problems in dealing with COVID-19 was that healthcare workers treating patients were getting themselves infected. Zheng said he wanted to do something to help this situation.
So the engineer gathered a team and went to work on the robot. Zheng said the team was able to change two robotic arms. The new robot is almost completely automated (自动化的), Zheng said. It can even disinfect itself after performing actions involving patient contact.
"Doctors are all very brave," Zheng told Reuters. "But this virus is just too contagious…We can use robots to perform the most dangerous tasks."
However, Zheng said he had heard from some doctors that it would be better not to build such robots. This is because many patients still desire a personal presence to help calm them during treatment.
The team now has two robots and both have been tested by doctors at hospitals in Beijing. One machine was once taken to Wuhan's Union Hospital, where doctors there were trained to use it.
Zheng would like to build more of the robots, but money from the university has run out, each robot costs about$72,000 to make. He does not plan to commercialize the design, but hopes that a company can begin that process.
1. What are Paragraph 4 and 5 mainly about?| A．When the robot was designed. | B．How the robot is controlled. |
| C．Who the robot is intended for. | D．Why the robot was invented. |
| A．clean | B．destroy | C．decorate | D．break |
| A．Patients refusing to use the new robot. |
| B．Healthcare workers getting themselves infected. |
| C．Being short of money to produce more of the robots. |
| D．Having no teammates to commercialize the design. |
| A．Doctors are Fighting against Coronavirus |
| B．Coronavirus is Under Control in China |
| C．Chinese Robot is Invented to Replace Doctors to Cure Diseases |
| D．Chinese Robot is Designed to Help Doctors Fight Coronavirus |
6 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions(份), it's the beanpoles with big appetites you really need to avoid.
To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly(表面上)participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.
Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.
For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.
The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we're making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she's having” effect. However, we'll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I'll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can't I?
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Food safety. | B．Movie viewership. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Eating behavior. |
| A．Big eaters. | B．Overweight persons. |
| C．Picky eaters. | D．Tall thin persons. |
| A．To see how she would affect the participants. |
| B．To test if the participants could recognize her. |
| C．To find out what she would do in the two tests. |
| D．To study why she could keep her weight down. |
| A．How hungry we are. | B．How slim we want to be. |
| C．How we perceive others. | D．How we feel about the food. |
7 . It was 3:21 a.m. when nine-year-old Glenn Kreamer awoke to the smell of burning. Except for the cracking (爆烈声) of flames somewhere below there was not a sound in the two-storey house at Baldwin Long Island.
With his father away on night duty at a local factory, Glenn was worried about the safety of his mother, his sister Karen, 14 and his 12-year-old brother Todd. He ran downstairs through the smoke-filled house to push and pull at Karen and Todd until they sat up. Then he helped each one through the house to the safety of the garden. There, his sister and brother, taking short and quick breaths and coughing, fell down onto the lawn.
The nine-year-old boy raced back into the house and upstairs to his mother’s room. He found it impossible to wake her up. Mrs. Kreamer, a victim of the smoke, was unconscious, and there was nobody to help Glenn carry her to the garden. But the boy stayed calm and, as a fireman said later, "acted with all the self-control of a trained adult."
On the bedroom telephone, luckily still working, Glenn called his father and, leaving Mr. Kreamer to telephone the fire brigade and ambulance service, got on with the task of saving his mother.
First he filled a bucket with water from the bathroom and threw water over his mother and her bed. Then, with a wet cloth around his head he went back to the garden.
He could hear the fire engine coming up, but how would the firemen find his mother in the smoke-filled house where flames had almost swallowed up the ground floor?
Grasping firmly a ball of string (线) from the garage, Glenn raced back into the house and dashed upstairs to his mother’s room. Tying one end of the string to her hand, he ran back, laying out the string as he went, through the hall and back out into the garden.
Minutes later he was telling fire chief John Coughlan, "The string will lead you to mother." Mrs. Kreamer was carried to safety as the flames were breaking through her bedroom floor.
1. Why did Glenn run downstairs first?| A．He wanted to find out what was happening. |
| B．He was worried about his mother’s safety. |
| C．He wanted to save his sister and brother. |
| D．He went to see if his father had come back from work. |
| A．Glenn. | B．Glenn’s father. |
| C．Glenn’s sister. | D．Glenn’s neighbor. |
| A．unfortunate | B．confuse |
| C．terrified | D．senseless |
| A．his father had taught him to do so on the phone |
| B．he had learned something about first aid |
| C．he had dealt with the emergency calmly and wisely |
| D．he had followed his mother’s instructions |
8 . I realized I would not see a real person named Sophie at Sophie’s Eatery because, like most new restaurants these days, Sophie’s is a robo-restaurant.
When I walked in, a cute little manager robot appeared, looking rather like a toaster with blinking (眨) blue eyes. It escorted me to a nice table in the back. The menu monitor popped out of my table and showed me pictures of my dining choices. I tapped my choices and clicked OK, and the screen slid back down.
I watched as full plates rode the conveyer belts that moved along each aisle (过道) of tables. In just a few minutes, my dish stopped at my table, and I took it from the belt. Later, I placed my empty plate back on the conveyer belt, and it was taken away into kitchen to be cleaned.
I watched the little toaster showing customers to tables while I ate my main dish. The food was delicious, but I was starting to feel extremely angry because dealing with robots always makes me feel inhuman. Pretty soon, I wanted to talk to someone real, even if it was just a few sentences.
So when my dessert arrived, I took action. I dropped my plate on the floor with a satisfying crash. I was so happy when I saw the manager toaster’s blinking red eyes—at last, a real live person would arrive!
But instead, a crew of two robots quickly appeared. A robot broom rushed over and started to sweep the piece of the broken plate into a robot garbage can. They finished and moved back into the kitchen.
My plan to get a little reality into Sophie’s Eatery failed. I hope the robo-restaurant trend ends soon. I want to deal with people again!
1. What does the underlined word “escorted” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Registered. | B．Guided. |
| C．Conducted. | D．Rushed |
| A．To deal with a real human. | B．To catch attention from the robots. |
| C．To play jokes on the robots. | D．To complain about the bad service. |
| A．Satisfied. | B．Shocked. |
| C．Annoyed. | D．Curious. |
| A．The trend of dining with robots. |
| B．The advantage of robo-restaurants. |
| C．The food variety of a robo-restaurant. |
| D．The dining experience at a robo-restaurant. |
9 . Some scientists believe that one of the most intelligent beings on Earth is in fact the octopus (章鱼).
Octopuses usually live at the bottom of river mouths and seas-areas which are not attractive to researchers. They are not social animals so it can be hard to study their interaction with others. And the octopus’ intelligence is not easy for humans to understand. When we observe some animals such as rats or dogs, we can often understand their behavior. Octopuses，however can seem like aliens (外星人). Scientists need to have a lot of imagination to understand what an octopus is thinking!
In the 1950s, the US Air Force sponsored scientists to study the way octopuses use their brains. They hoped that they could use this knowledge to help them build better computers. However, their brains were so complex that the scientists felt it of no significance to continue with it. Octopuses have a very complex nervous system and recent research suggests that they have some of their intelligence inside each arm, which means that each arm can “think” for itself. It also appears that they have a good memory, perhaps similar to a cat’s.
Perhaps the most striking thing about octopuses is their ability to change their color and body pattern. They do this to camouflage themselves to avoid their enemies and also to communicate with others. They can completely change their appearance in less than a second. It can change its skin to look like rocks, sand or planktron (浮游生物).
Some scientists have even suggested that these different patterns and colors are in fact a very hard language-and that each design is a different verb，adjective or noun. But nobody has been able to work out what they might be saying. There’s a long way to go to get to know the octopus completely.
1. What can we infer about the octopus’ intelligence from Paragraph 2?| A．It does not attract scientists. | B．Little has been known about it. |
| C．It is equal to the cat’s or dog’s. | D．Much has been done about it. |
| A．They had to give it up eventually. | B．They used computers to help. |
| C．They found its arms could think. | D．They judged it lived like a cat. |
| A．Relax. | B．Strengthen. | C．Hide. | D．Express. |
| A．They are the smartest animals. | B．They’re easy to be seen in the sea. |
| C．It is useful to copy their language. | D．It is difficult to understand them. |
